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Role Playing (Games)

Exploring the Marvel Universe Online 88

Posted by Zonk from the i-think-there-will-be-super-heroes dept.
In the wake of yesterday's formal announcement of the Marvel Online title, Gamespot has an interview with 'Cryptic Studios' creative director, Jack Emmert, and Marvel Entertainment's vice president of Interactive, Ames Kirshen — as well as Microsoft Game Studios' senior director of business development, Frank Pape. They discuss the details of a game on Windows and the 360 (both will play in the same world), how the game will reflect the comics, and why Cryptic is involved. From the article: "Cryptic with their great pedigree, their great track record on the City of Heroes franchise — it was the perfect partner. We have access to all the characters in the history and lore of the Marvel universe to put into this game. So we're super excited. I mean this is, for an MMO player and for folks on the console that want to play an MMO and bringing in a new audience, it's as compelling a statement as we can make." And here I thought they were going to talk about that little multi-year lawsuit between Cryptic and Marvel.
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Exploring the Marvel Universe Online More

Exploring the Marvel Universe Online

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  • Competing Against yourself? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ironwill96 ( 736883 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @10:47AM (#16230555) Homepage Journal
    1. Make a comic-themed MMO. 2. Get sued by Marvel, make comic-themed MMO for them that competes against two of your own products. 3. Profit?!?

    Jack "Statesman" Emmert claims that the new MMO will be more "story" based and tied into new comic book storylines etc and that they will continue to support the COX (City of Villains and City of Heroes) games. However, it seems to me that they must be competing with themselves on some level, even if with two separate development teams at Cryptic handling the different games. Can anyone here imagine them *not* using the same style of character creator that they have in the COX games? It is brilliantly executed and almost necessary for this type of game so I'm pretty sure we will see it in some form in the Marvel MMO. The Marvel MMO will probably have 40-50% nicer looking graphics which is going to woo a lot of people as well as full permission to use all Marvel charactes in the story which is also going to draw a lot of fans. I think the COX games have reached their peak in subscribers and once the Marvel MMO comes out, they will in all likelihood lose customers. However, Cryptic is probably making a % of all profits from the Marvel MMO so this works out well for them but not so great for long-term support for the COX games.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jarnis ( 266190 )
      CoH/CoV are dead. They will continue to run the life support and token 'additions' as long as it's financially sound, but it's obivious that Cryptic's main devs will concentrate on the new stuff.

      Just look at DAOC after Warhammer Online was announced. I rest my case.

      • Re:Competing Against yourself? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Keith Russell ( 4440 ) * on Thursday September 28, 2006 @12:43PM (#16232901) Journal
        Just look at DAOC after Warhammer Online was announced.

        Well, this isn't quite the same thing. With DAOC and Warhammer, that was pretty much the same team moving on to the next big thing on their own.

        One thing Positron said in his letter to The Cities community [cityofheroes.com] was that the Cities and Marvel Universe will have totally separate dev teams. And with the kinds of cash Marvel and Microsoft can throw at Marvel Universe, Cryptic wouldn't have to siphon any money from the Cities' team. In fact, I doubt Jack Emmert would agree to this deal if he didn't think the Cities would be self-sustaining throughout the process.

        IMHO, keeping the teams separate is almost a necessity. Neither team will want new features to be dependent on the other. Certainly, there will be a new client engine, since the Cities are OpenGL. Marvel Universe will run on both Windows and XBox 360, so Direct3D would be an engineering no-brainer even if Microsoft wasn't publishing the title. And, if nothing else, the inevitable rivalry between the Cities and Marvel Universe will push both teams to prove their own worth. Marvel Universe doesn't want to be seen as a mere "re-skin" of City of Heroes, with Jean Gray and Xavier's School standing where Ms. Liberty and City Hall used to be, and the Cities don't want to be reduced to one large beta test for Marvel.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Jarnis ( 266190 )
          It's exactly the same thing as DAOC.

          DAOC claimed that 'no this won't affect DAOC, Warhammer Online has whole different dev team on another floor of the same building'.

          While this may be mostly true, any real dev investment to DAOC went downhill fast after that. Yes, they still have people fixing exploits and they are releasing a small expansion later this year, but there has been no real development after Catacombs was launched to the core game systems. DAOC has been broken as far as gameplay is concerned si

          • DAOC claimed that 'no this won't affect DAOC, Warhammer Online has whole different dev team on another floor of the same building'. While this may be mostly true, any real dev investment to DAOC went downhill fast after that.

            But the Warhammer team was spending DAOC's money. Marvel Universe has two very wealthy sugar daddies.

            Cryptic was a one-game shop before Marvel Universe. Auto Assault is from another studio entirely, yet their failure hit their common publisher, NCSoft, hard enough to impact Cryptic'

      • You have an interesting definition of "dead." City of Heroes has about 160,000-170,000 subscribers, as of their last monthly report. That's quite respectable for an MMO that's not World of Warcraft, Everquest, Lineage, etc. MMOGchart.com [mmogchart.com] says that [mmogchart.com] "City of Heroes is proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the currently very competitive climate." If you assume each of those subscriptions counts for $10 a month of revenue to CoH (considering their multimonth discount subs

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jarnis ( 266190 )
          Dead as in no longer actively developed or improved. Only on life support to try to maximize the ability to milk out as much from the initial investment in the R&D prior to launch.

          Yes, they are promising the world in the next four 'issues'. Talk is cheap. Note how very very vague their plans are...
          • Well, I know for a while they were releasing new Issues a couple times per year, as well as weekly/monthly updates. Has that stopped all of a sudden?
          • Bah. Their plans have always been vague, until right before they come out with them. They've been burned before by promising things prematurely that didn't work out (like the "Super Secret Out of Combat Skill System"), so now they try to say little but give more.

            When Statesman stepped down as lead dev and Positron stepped in, there was a sea change in the amount of information we received, and the amount of stuff that was promised. For one thing, the planned upcoming paid expansion pack was cancelled, and i

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by vonPoonBurGer ( 680105 )
      According to the president of NCSoft North America, Robert Garriott (brother to Richard Garriott of Ultima fame, who now works as a game designer at NCSoft Austin), they're not competing against themselves. They're making churn their friend. From their insight into the MMOG space, they see customer paying and playing for around 10 months, then they move on to some other game. By having lots of MMOG games in their stable, they increase the chances that that, the next time you're looking for an MMOG, you l
    • Well, let's say you're a baker, and you make a profit sell white and wheat bread.

      If you start producing pumpernickel, are you competing against yourself, or are you just expanding the products you offer?
      Some people will buy less white or wheat bread and to buy pumpernickel, and some people will buy pumpernickel in addition to the breads they bought already. Also, you might attract customers who never would have bought white or wheat, but want pumpernickel.

      In the first case, you're competing against your

    • Statesman?
      What are his powers?

      Slimier than than a raging lawyer.
      More powerful than a city official.
      He can pass ineffectual laws with a single signature.

      Who's that on that yacht?
      It's a mongoose!
      It's steve ballmer!
      It's Statesman!
  • I think we need an xmen in the world of warcraft style and we need it soon whose with me?
    • Orcs? Cool. Elf slaughter? Cool. Pig roasts? Still cool.

      Running around in tights and underroos doing good? Creepy.

      Count me out.

      • Re:I never got the "men in tights" thing... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @11:09AM (#16230981) Homepage
        I'd couldn't prove it, but my thought is that the skin tight suits is a result of the historical necessity to keep art costs down in comics.

        Drawing clothes is extra work. First you draw the body, then you have to draw the clothes over that body such that they appear to hang naturally.

        Or you could just draw the body, and then color it to look like the hero is wearing clothes, maybe add a couple pieces of flair. It's faster, ergo cheaper. Add fifty years and maybe it isn't financially necessary for publishers like Marvel but it has basically become a tradition.

        I understand there's a similar explanation for why characters in Japanese comics have crazy-colored hair. Everyone in Japan has black hair, so in B&W comics it made sense to just leave the hair blank to save money and prevent printing problems and their readers just naturally filled it in with the expected color. When they started using color printing, the artists thought why fill in that blank space with black when you could use pink or blue? This, too, then becomes a tradition.
        • I personally find it a lot easier to draw a figure-covering trench coat or a cape than an anatomically correct (or exaggerated) human. :)
          • Does that work when you're creating a dynamic pose rather than them just standing straight up? Most artists recommend drawing the body first, then the clothes on top of it, so you can get the clothes right. Going from zero to trenchcoat doesn't sound easier to me, if you want it to look right, but that's me.
            • A wireframe underneath is always a good idea, but you don't have to be as worried about the details of muscles and bones and surface anatomy, which is what I find the hardest. Bury it all in a sheet, and as long as it's basically right, it's easier to bluff your way through. :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Forge ( 2456 )
          You are dead on with the tights thing.

          I did some art and it was much easier to draw nudes than people in cloths. easier than all of those is heavy armor, robots and aliens.

          In those casses you can outright invent the apearance. So a munster that's only seen in a single panel of a comic is the absolute easiest thing to draw.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by kfg ( 145172 ) *
          I'd couldn't prove it, but my thought is that the skin tight suits is a result of the historical necessity to keep art costs down in comics.

          I couldn't prove it, but my thought is that skin tight suits is a result of wanting to sell nudes to teenagers without getting arrested.

          Draw tits. Ink them yellow. Done.

          KFG

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by justaj ( 915459 )
          I remember Stan Lee saying the reason he went for the spandex look was because a) superheroes had to be able to move around comfortably and without constriction and they couldnt do it in normal clothes and b) he wanted to show off the muscles in the guys and the curves in the girls.

          Which makes more sense to me. Superman wouldnt be quite as cool if he was lifting a truck in a suit and tie.
      • Well, the "men in tights" thing then makes it acceptable to have "women in tights" in the comics as well!
      • Superman's costume was based on the suits worn by "strongmen" at the Circus. The rest is history.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lectrik ( 180902 )
        Orcs? Cool. Elf slaughter? Cool. Pig roasts? Still cool.

        Running around in tights and underroos doing good? Creepy.

        Count me out.


        I think both WoW and their own City of Villains may have taught them that not everyone wants to be a hero.
        Running around in tights doing evil? Not as creepy.
        Flying around in spaceships, mining asteroids and shooting down pirates? Where my ISK is already going. It'll have to be really fun to get me away from Eve

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by wolf369T ( 951405 )
      Neah, I'm more into DC stuff. Never liked superpowers like magnetic force, storm control or incotrolable eye lasers. Superman, Batman and their gang are much more rafinated. What it would really be interesing will be a DC vs. Marvel MMORPG. With time control implemented, although I have no ideea how it wil suppose to work, but it would be nice. With secret identities and day jobs, off course.

  • RPG or Twitch? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the computer guy nex ( 916959 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @10:51AM (#16230645)
    The only way I see a MMO doing well on a console would be twitch-style gameplay. Anything with hardcore RPG elements is better done with a keyboard.

    The only twitch-based MMO I can think of is Sony's Planetscape (I believe). I hope they go this route, it would be fun on a console.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Jarnin ( 925269 )
      Star Wars Galaxies is also twitch-based. It has been for quite a few months now.
      • Which is pretty sad given how clumsy their interface is and how sluggish their movement is.

        They, too, could use a lesson from City of Heroes -- 3d movement built right into the game. SWG is more anti-3D movement than even WoW. The animation for "jumping while running" = your body keeps running as it moves through a geoometric arc through the air. You can't leap over anything but the smallest things you can walk up.
    • Anything with hardcore RPG elements is better done with a keyboard

      Really? What do you consider hardcore RPG elements? I ask this out of honest curiosity; I've played roughly as many RPGs on consoles as I have on PCs, and I don't see it. But I've never played an MMORPG (unless you count MOOing, which you shouldn't), and the RPG has never been my primary game genre.

      What does an RPG have to do to make it hardcore that is infeasible with a console controller?
      • See I'm not so sure about it having to be twitch. Basically, the difference between 'RPG' and 'twitch' is that, in 'RPG' style, it's your character's abilities what matter when deciding the outcome of actions. So, you select a target, select an action and the computer calculates if the action succeeds depending on your character's abilities and stats, and the 'defense' of the target. In 'twitch' style (like Halo or Quake), you have to aim and move, if your aim as a player is good, you will probably hit, i
        • Actually in games like Quake, you actually have to aim. And if the target moves after you've fired, the rocket or whatever misses, end of story. In most MMORPGs, the "bullet" or spell or whatever will follow the target while it moves, just so it "hits", animation-wise, to keep pace with the fact the game has already decided the hit was successful. So it looks stupid.

          It's interesting that the most action-oriented of all MMORPGs I've ever played (which includes EQ, DaoC, AC, Horizons, SWG, MxO, WoW, and Co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GeckoX ( 259575 )
      I've heard that argument of FPS before of course, and it's true. But RPG requiring a keyboard to be optimal? RPG has nothing to do with that. I've never seen an RPG that wasn't FPS that was hard to control on a console.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by josteos ( 455905 )
      Gotcher twicthy MMOFPS right here ..... http://www.planetside.com/ [planetside.com].....

  • Won't fly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jarnis ( 266190 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @11:05AM (#16230907)
    Cryptic never had enough devs to actually develop City of Heroes forward from it's intial smack-endless-piles-of-baddies-with-mad-AE-attacks gameplay. The game has zero content.

    Yes, they relesed an expansion, that copypasted half the powers from Heroes side, and dropped another pile of nearly contect-free stuff and told people to go level again from zero.

    Also, a superhero game with a license is the silliest idea ever. Either you have 200 spidermans zipping around (beyond silly), or you can't allow players to play 'name' characters, at which point the whole point of a license goes out of the window. People play license games to 'be the hero' so to speak, and that doesn't work in a MMO. The concept is just broken out of the gate.

    Expect a weak ripoff of City of Heroes with marvel (tm)(R)'s added all around, with some weak license-tieins like 'name' heroes giving missions to the player characters, and maybe villains as bosses to whack. With zero endgame gameplay at launch and nearly zero post-launch content.

    MMOs live and die on the _gameplay_, not any license or logo, and while Cryptic did prove with CoH/CoV that they can make a workable superhero combat system that's cool for roughly two weeks, they also proved they couldn't design their way out of a paper bag beyond the combat system. All the bolted-on stuff has been broken - PvP was riddled by extra rules and special pvp nerfs to powers, base system was so badly designed it was unusable to most of the playerbase and the 'crafting' introduced in CoV was so bad it makes EQ2's crafting system look great in comparison.

    WoW upped the bar on the amount of content and gameplay required to keep people hooked on a MMO. And even WoW faces constant whines how there's not enough to do. I can't blame people for trying, but I sincerely doubt Marvel Online will be a success - if it even gets out of the gate (Microsoft has a tendency to kill off/sell off MMO projects when their beancounters get the willies during development)

    • It could work (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @11:29AM (#16231399) Homepage
      Also, a superhero game with a license is the silliest idea ever. Either you have 200 spidermans zipping around (beyond silly), or you can't allow players to play 'name' characters, at which point the whole point of a license goes out of the window. People play license games to 'be the hero' so to speak, and that doesn't work in a MMO. The concept is just broken out of the gate.

      Expect a weak ripoff of City of Heroes with marvel (tm)(R)'s added all around, with some weak license-tieins like 'name' heroes giving missions to the player characters, and maybe villains as bosses to whack. With zero endgame gameplay at launch and nearly zero post-launch content.

      If Spidey and Wolverine are just hanging around handing out quests and tossing out catch phrases, it will be stupid.

      However if they involve these characters in the actual gameplay, it could be pretty fun.

      Imagine taking your original hero character, working your way through the ranks, proving your mettle, such that you become a full-fledged X-Man and get to go on missions with Wolverine. Would that satisfy the desire to "be the hero"? It sounds like it to me. Best of both worlds: My own creation, my personal avatar, I am a bad-ass super-hero, and look there's my favorite Marvel characters kicking ass beside me!

      Of course practically speaking I'm not expecting anything that involved. It will probably be as you describe, and be crappy. Yet it is possible, if Marvel decides to give Cryptic a serious up-front cash injection so they have enough developers to handle it. Hopefully Cryptic made money of Co(H|V) themselves and can afford more developers. If they take it seriously, spend the money, and do it right, a Marvel MMO could be great.

      I'll start holding my breath right... now.
      • By the way, the "Spiderman problem", webslinging, was solved long ago with the Quake (I) grappling hook. However it required skill and practice to "websling" through missions. Plus it was fast.

        Therefore I predict this power will be a pale imitation of either Quake or the Spiderman comic. Ooh, I'm "webslinging" at 14 miles per hour, with some bizarre air control that has little to do with normal momentum-and-gravity physics.

        But at least the "tanks" will be among the most heavy hitters. No "Hulk" standing
        • By the way, the "Spiderman problem", webslinging, was solved long ago with the Quake (I) grappling hook. However it required skill and practice to "websling" through missions. Plus it was fast.

          Bah, the Quake I grappling hook was crap on a stick. Thank god most of the mods that made use of the grappling hook had a version that didn't. CTF servers were mostly grappling-hook enabled, much the pity, but normal Team Fortress didn't have it. Mega TF did use it, but Mega TF was also a crapfest in a variety of o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Burlap ( 615181 )
      WoW's content has very little drivnig force behind it.... I have never once felt that the missions i did had any reason to do the next one, they were always so utterly disconected that you had no idea who gave you a mission unless you read the text. CoH/V however had AMAZING stories in their mission text (which i suggest you read). There is actual tension in the missions from one to the next. You knew who gave you the mission as the stories were so radically different that there was no way to confuse one

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jarnis ( 266190 )
        Problem is, while the text was nice in CoH/CoV, the actual mission was always the same. Kill all baddies, click glowy thingy or kill boss. There was little REASON to read the text. Heck, when they did 'kidnap' missions for CoV, they didn't even bother to redo animations - it's same as 'rescue' missions in CoH side, with the 'kidnap victim' happily following you around the mission map.

        Also CoV/CoH was badly overinstanced.
        • Worse, once in awhile you'd find a "clue", and "CLUE FOUND!" would pop up and then disappear. So you go look in list of clue descriptions, and there'd be three dozen in there, with no way to know which one was the one you just found.

          So you skipped it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Jaeph ( 710098 )
      "Also, a superhero game with a license is the silliest idea ever. Either you have 200 spidermans zipping around (beyond silly), or you can't allow players to play 'name' characters, at which point the whole point of a license goes out of the window. People play license games to 'be the hero' so to speak, and that doesn't work in a MMO. The concept is just broken out of the gate."

      You need to show some imagination. What if players are all bands of x-men or avengers? Also, it's not just the heroes, now I can

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        I'm hoping they have something like Task Forces where you basically park your regular character at home and instead take over some pre-built named characters with nifty powers/abilities.

        I suspect that the signature heros will spend most of their time just handing out missions/task forces however. Cryptic has never shown much initative for moving past the bog standard MMO gameplay elements however, so don't expect something radically new and different.

    • Either you have 200 spidermans zipping around (beyond silly), or you can't allow players to play 'name' characters, at which point the whole point of a license goes out of the window.

      Actually there are more options than that. The one they will probably take is that you create your own character, then, rather than fighting 'with' marvel heroes, you'll be fighting against marvel villains. In other words, you can't fight as Spiderman, but you can fight against the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Mysterio ... etc.

    • MMOs live and die on the _gameplay_

      No. MMOs stay alive by making the player do boring repetive tasks, and make him somehow believe that what he is doing is gratifying (zomg I leveled up!!!!!1), so he'll get addicted and keep paying for his subscription as long as possible.

      But gameplay? LOL. MMOs aren't about interesting gaming experiences.

  • omg multiplatform!!@#$%^ (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Thursday September 28, 2006 @11:07AM (#16230945) Homepage Journal
    FP: [...]It will be on Xbox 360 and on Windows, and will feature cross-platform seamless simultaneous play, which we believe is unprecedented.

    GS: So it'll be the same people on the PC as on the 360?

    FP: Absolutely, playing at the same time, which we think is tremendous--a unique and compelling feature for folks to play the game.
    So it's the same tremendous, unprecedented, unique, compelling feature that Square/Enix and Final Fantasy XI have had for a number of years?

  • GS: Now I presume, the game is going to let you create your own heroes. My question is, how are the characters from the Marvel universe going to interact with those newly created characters?

    Jack Emmert: Don't presume anything right now. We are dedicated to creating the ultimate Marvel experience online and we'll do whatever it takes to fulfill that. Whether you can play as a character or create your own--right now, we're not announcing anything.

    I'm guessing we'll see 10,000 wolverines and spidermans r

    • Yeah. That's pretty dumb I think. It will ultimately ruin any fun factor of the game as well as ruin any comic book storylines. "Then Wolverine shows up with 2,000 of his clones to fight Magneto and his 21,002 clones. Who will survive and who will die?" again...dumb idea.
  • 1. Marvel is evil. They refuse to pay artists, screwed Jack Kirby (and his widow) and have gone bankrupt more times thatn I have fingers on one hand leaving a slough of unpaid debts to artists and writers.
    2. Microsoft is evil. I don't think explanation is needed in this regard. The fact that a Microsoft lobbyist is now the ambassador to the EU and is lobbying them to 'be nicer' to Microsoft proves that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    Now take these two companies with little to no moral values and put the
  • Once again Microsoft thinks they need to "get in" on another business aspect that they have no clue about: MMOGS. I am trying to not troll here, but it's NOT going to be as easy as their devs saying "hey guys x-men online lolz". Do they think people are going to jump to play a Marvel MMO so they /can't/ be the superheroes in the MU? Do they think that playing a nobody in the Marvel Universe is going to make people flock there? Who am I supposed to be there? Because there sure can't be 100 Wolverines per ser
    • Yes, you are correct about SWG semi-tanking and MxO totally tanking, but that's because the gameplay was awful. And WoW would have been awful had it had lousy gameplay (which, btw, I think it does, I didn't get past mid 20s on my highest. But I played EQ and DaoC and AC until I was ready to barf from fantasy.) And SWG, besides people grinding for level after level killing giraffes out in the field, how Star Warsy and fun, had the insurmountable problem of how to let everybody be a Jedi without letting ev
  • How will they deal with the vastly different power levels in the Marvel Universe?

    For instance, you've got guys like the Punisher, who may have really big guns, but he's just a guy with guns, so he's sort of on the "normal guy level. Then you have guys like the Silver Surfer, Galactus , Quasar, etc. who are all on the "cosmic" level. Then there are guys on the mid level, which includes most mutants save for the super powerful ones (Magneto, Professor X), and then the REALLY powerful but still mostly just o
    • That's a good point. Having played on a few Marvel-based MUSH, one way to deal with it could be to have 'zones' or 'themes.' For instance, you'd have the Avengers area for Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, the Cosmic area for Silver Surfer and Quasar, the 'Streets' area for Spider-Man and the Punisher. These could even be 'themed' servers.
      • Raidspeak: Josephus the Ironbottom: Ok, only Rockdude tanks Galactus, as he's optimized for D against matter maniuplation, physical, and energy. Everybody else stay behind the pizza van unless you're a psi defender or spamming heals on the tank.

        Raidspeak: Wolferine: u kan lik my ironbllz, dragonlord

        Raidspeak: Josephus the Ironbottom: Also, please don't use raidspeak for anything but listening to or responding to raid instructions

        Raidspeak: Dragon Lord Frankie: eat me wolfie

        Raidspeak: Josephus the Ironb
  • They let the created characters from CoH/ CoV carry over to Marvel Online... They could make the Marvel characters highly active NPC's, individual factions, game master playable character's that interact with the customers on certain quests or even attack them based on random cirumstance, etc; not to mention that you could even raffle off, auction or sell the Marvel characters to the highest bidder. The CoH / CoV characters would be no different in this regard than say, another mutant faction(i.e. west coas
    • It'll probably be like that, but tuned to "Marvel style" powers. Like, in addition to travel powers like super speed, super jump, flight, and teleport, they'll add a Quake-like grappling-hook style power, with skins overlain for "Spiderman" webs or "Mr. Fantastic stretchy arms". Or the good old Grappling hook, Daredevel-style, of course.

      At least the "claws/regen" scrapper should be there, thank god. I cannot stand "fighting classes" in other games now that the scrapper has appeared on the scene. Standin
  • I don't understand MMORPGs. Oh, I certainly get the appeal behind them. Get a few thousand people together and make a living and breathing world to play in, but there is not a single MMORPG that has even come close to doing that with perhaps the singular exception of UO (and that lasted roughly a month). Personally, I envision a Marvel MMORPG to look roughly exactly the same as City of Heroes. You will pick some powers, start at level 1, and then kill roughly a quadrillion mindless NPCs to get more lev
  • OK, I even RTFA'd and was it just that I missed it?
    Cryptic - maker of City of Heroes/Villains - is helping Marvel make Marvel MMOG.

    That's like Blizzard helping Hasbro make D&D Online.

    WTF? How could you have a whole interview and not ask ONE QUESTION about that teeny little conflict-of-interest thing?

    I can't see how they can do this and keep CoH/V alive.
  • CoX(City of Heroes/Villains) had delightful PvE gameplay, but fun though it was, it got repetitive. And there wasn't anything else since team-based PvE was the core focus while the rest was/is added later.

    Hopefully this Marvel game is a chance for a fresh start in terms of game mechanics, player-to-player dynamics, and engine limitations. I enjoyed CoX but cancelled after exhausting it. I look forward to more from Cryptic.

    And I loved Cryptic's attitude toward its community. They're open and frank with their

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